The Manchester United Way Has Quickly Turned Insane On Its Slow Road To Hell

Sir Alex Ferguson’s glorious Premier League spell of dominance at Manchester United in the 1990’s and through the Noughties may well have caused plenty of angst amongst fans of other club colours, but in more recent times they have been enjoying their demise.

Non Red Devil’s constantly reference favourable referring decisions and the often spoken about ‘Fergie Time’ which had Video Assistant Referee standards of seeming to last just long enough to let them score, with an obligatory penalty if it was truly required, but nostalgia may not always be the best standard bearer of truth.

What is true though is much like a great stroke of luck in crypto live games can really lift your mood and change your evening, following Sir Alex’s retirement things have gone from bad to absolutely diabolical at Old Trafford. In fact it was going pear shaped whilst he remained in charge.

The legal financial pseudo swindle of the Glazer family takeover that saw debt to buy the club leveraged against the clubs’ actual revenue is as clever as it is horrific when you compare what they have ‘put in’ to what they have now ‘taken out’ and fans revolted with FC United of Manchester being formed where some of the ‘prawn sandwich brigade’ tore up their season tickets, walked away and opted for Spam diet in the future.

That was not a low point as history showed, there were more miles left on the Road to Hell. The massive fall from grace on the pitch, a managerial and player turnover that would leave a hotel wondering if someone had secretly motorised their revolving door and then we had the arrival of Sir Jim of Ratcliffe. The 73 year old promptly began claiming he would soon be homeless, the club were broke and going out of business and that it was absolutely necessary to cut costs and sack or sell anything that was not nailed down in order to save money.

For someone who was fired after three days for being unable to work around chemicals, his future career is not only interesting, but it makes one wonder why he bought into such a toxic football club to begin with. They then also spent multi millions in the very next transfer window whilst becoming even more of a laughing stock in the wider world of football. We are not supposed to talk about that though.

One thing remains pervasive at Old Trafford though. A delusional belief of entitlement for success, and a warped ideology of an invented thing called ‘…the Manchester United way…’ that no manager or group of players could ever live up to. Simply because it is an expectation that is constantly out of kilter with reality and has barely come close to being a thing two times in over 100 years. Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex may epitomise what fans believe ‘…the Manchester United way…’ is, but their own record and style of play outside of those periods shows it to be the cherry picked delusion it really is in terms of being a claimed ingrained way of life.

A number of previously successful clubs harbour this kind of illusion. They are superior to all others, whilst believing that they are constantly conspired against by the authorities. They remember the one slight or controversial moment that went against them in 90 minutes, yet remain childishly oblivious to the 15 decisions that wrongly went in their favour. They believe their play and their way is always a movie montage of Harlem Globetrotters elite exhibition performance levels – quick, incisive, bums off seats stuff.

It is not.

They do not talk about the ugly, defensive, hours of football that gave them a hard fought late 1-0 victory in the 115th minute of normal time that no one can explain. They do not talk about penalties being awarded when their striker fouls the opposition player in the box. They do not talk about the Referee creating an unheard of rule that we never see again to justify an offside.

They get used to that reality, and opposition fans resign themselves to the unfairness. In getting used to that and begrudgingly accepting it, right now fans of other clubs are enjoying their revenge and who can blame them?

Fans of all colours are still laughing at their 15th place finish last term, the fact the latest manager they were going to stick with finally changed his tactics under protest and then made it impossible to keep employing him. Not only that, they have reemployed a manager who did not oversee a single game in his prior brief spell in charge, but they chose him mainly because their reported next top target was a man who they have previously sacked. He believed in the ‘way’ of course, but 91 wins from 158 games was just not good enough for the warped little expectations that live in their heads rent free.

The Manchester United way…the leaky Old Trafford terraces are known for their love of popular songs but I did not think Insane in the Brain would be one of them. I am not alone in being glad it is though.